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The Provocations of Camille Paglia

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Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#101

Post by pacala »

word-reader wrote: post #92
sprafa wrote: post #36

Peterson lost a lot of credibility for me when he took a group selfie with some guys with a big Pepe The Frog flag. I mean it’s kind of funny but 90% of the Pepe memes are actually racist and horrible (from what I’ve seen). After that I couldn’t take his alt-right denialism very seriously. It’s a shame because I actually think some of his talks are quite good.

This is absurd. Where on earth are these "racist and horrible" Pepe memes coming from? In reality, 90% of uses of the Pepe character (which is now a fading meme) are as an avatar or highlight of a post's emotion. Seriously, the majority of all Pepes ever posted have been either a sad frog, a smug frog, or a happy frog. People use the meme to help express themselves along with their text, and then people spazz out wor…

One of the most insidious effects of internet news in general and social media in particular is that we latch to information bubbles where people spread material painting "the other" in the worst possible view. It is entirely possible that u/sprafa news feed is a place where 90% of Pepe-related content does consist of "look at what those evil racists are peddling all day long" outrage based like-bait.

The sad part is the u/sprafa may well be unable to reconcile the perspective of what he saw with his own eyes with the perspective of others, in which Pepe is merely an avatar of one's own benign emotion.

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#102

Post by merpnderp »

danharaj wrote: post #97
not_a_terf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the Reimer story support a naive version of biological sex moreso than an acceptance of gender identity?

It supports believing people about what their gender identity is instead of imposing it on them. The rate of attempted suicide in transgender people is over 40% if they are not socially supported. That rate drops to general population levels in trans people who have familial and community support when transitioning.

Interesting stats, do you have a citation on the suicide rates?

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#103

Post by sctb »

pjc50 wrote: post #24

But that's assuming the conclusion! The whole point of gender studies is the idea that biology is not destiny, especially in social interaction. The roles we play and the relationships we have with each other aren't a mere clockwork expression of our chromosomes. They are far more memetic instead. You can't point to a spot on the Y chromosome that is responsible for unequal pay. Edit: I know it's frowned on to compla…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20807363.

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#104

Post by jazzyk »

benc666 wrote: post #44
wtdata wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does this really mean? Does it mean anything? She means that human consciousness is born from our actions towards nature since before we were conscious and that we cannot detach morality from that. Furthermore, we can't hope to define sex and gender, before understanding the roots of morality since they are defined by our primeval nature, not by society rules born out of conscious thought.

Morality is a human construct. Nature has no morality, only survival matters - by any means. That's why such cruelty (from human moral viewpoint) is found in Nature.

>Nature has no morality

But perhaps it does? Animals kill other animals only to survive (to kill them in order to eat them or to defend themselves from being killed/eaten)

Humans may be the only species who hurt other humans just for the fun of it - now _that_ is cruelty.

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#105

Post by jolux »

Paglia is one of those conservatives who is incredibly transphobic and hides it behind the facade of being a “provocateur.” She has defended the completely absurd belief (in this case, proposed by Sheila Jeffries) that cross-gender hormone therapy is a conspiracy by big pharma to get trans people taking hormones for life, among other things:

“In it she [Jeffries] argues among other things, that the pharmaceutical industry, having lost income when routine estrogen therapy for menopausal women was abandoned because of its health risks, has been promoting the relatively new idea of transgenderism in order to create a permanent class of customers who will need to take prescribed hormones for life.”

From https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/camille-p...

Bioidentical estradiol is a generic medication with many manufacturers and costs very little. There is not very much money to be made manufacturing it. More profitable would be the GnRH agonists, frequently used as the puberty blockers which she claims are so potentially dangerous. However their benefit is clear, and furthermore there is an entire field of medical research devoted to understanding the impacts of those drugs, and so far nothing in the evidence suggests blockers are significantly risky at all, let alone anywhere near as dangerous as the increased risk of suicide that trans kids have going through the wrong puberty.

Source for much of this: I’m a trans woman, also a pharmacology, psychiatry, and endocrinology nerd. I’m not taking hormones for life because I “need” to, I’m doing it because I want to, as is every other trans woman I know. If that changes, I can stop. It’s as simple as that.

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#106

Post by antisemiotic »

jazzyk wrote: post #104
benc666 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Morality is a human construct. Nature has no morality, only survival matters - by any means. That's why such cruelty (from human moral viewpoint) is found in Nature.

>Nature has no morality But perhaps it does? Animals kill other animals only to survive (to kill them in order to eat them or to defend themselves from being killed/eaten) Humans may be the only species who hurt other humans just for the fun of it - now _that_ is cruelty.

Humans and cats, actually.

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#107

Post by YorkshireSeason »

jboynyc wrote: post #30
rvn1045 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not that familiar with her work. But my understanding is that when disciplines like gender studies were being formed they completely ignored biology and nature.in fact there were no biologists in the gender studies departments. And she was one of the first people to suggest that we must study gender with a basis in biology. This is what she may be referencing in the passage you quoted.

Ahem... Do you know about Anne Fasto-Sterling or Donna Haraway? They are both highly credentialed biologists and pivotal figures in the development of women's/gender studies.

In what sense is Donna Haraway a "highly credentialed biologist"?

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#108

Post by jimbokun »

honzzz wrote: post #25
cjfd wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the quote sounds like a profoundly wise thing to say. Anyone who has ever noticed in him/herself that sexual fantasies are not necessarily very political correct should know this. E.g., rape fantasies as either the perpetrator or the victim occur in large percentages of the population.

I have to admit that I fail to see any connection between that quote and the thing you wrote about sexual fantasies. Also, that thing about sexual fantasies... is it not obvious? Does anyone need to read a book to discover it? I might be missing something and I want to be corrected if that is the case but so far it seems like one of those cases when famous authors write something so vague or even empty that people pr…

Seems like Paglia is stating the blindingly obvious, because so many in her field were rejecting it?

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#109

Post by namirez »

DataWorker wrote: post #90
namirez wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She's right, but it really upsets many academics for someone to say that. Good. Is it "good" just because it upsets academics? Is she "right" just because you agree with her? To me, her comment sounds like a very uncharitable critique of those writers. I'm not a fan of Derrida or Lacan, but I've noticed they get a lot of criticism from people who've never read them. They were not necessarily original thinkers with…

“Offered some new insights” seems innocuous enough. I don’t think you’ll find such modesty in the claims these writers make. Despite the ostentatious self aggrandizement inherent in their critiques of our intellectual and cultural traditions, the best defense any honest person can offer for their work is a backstepping timid “they offered some new insights”. Well the newness of their insights is debatable. Listen to…

>Listen to any child’s tantrum and you’ll hear echos of foucault’s whining about the unfairness of power.

No offense but it appears you've never read Foucault. He never said power is unfair. It's like saying gravity is unfair because someone was hurt after a fall.

Re: The Provocations of Camille Paglia

#110

Post by _bfhp »

sterlind wrote: post #56
rvn1045 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not that familiar with her work. But my understanding is that when disciplines like gender studies were being formed they completely ignored biology and nature.in fact there were no biologists in the gender studies departments. And she was one of the first people to suggest that we must study gender with a basis in biology. This is what she may be referencing in the passage you quoted.

Gender studies did indeed start out this way, dismissive of notions of "biological sex," until the case of David Reimer threw a bucket of cold water on those second-wave feminist theories. David was the victim of a botched circumcision as an infant. His doctors decided to turn an outie into an innie, constructed a vagina, and told his parents to raise him as a woman. He was given "vitamin" pills (actually estrogen) a…

Celebrating the death of a feminist woman because you disagreed with her politically is probably the best way to get people to trust you, produce helpful discourse and not fall in line with whoever makes their argument most aggressively
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